


Because

by Moonyssoliloquy



Series: It's the aftermath that's hard [2]
Category: Back to the Future (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Marty can't adjust to the new timeline, Marty has a breakdown, No seriously help this poor boy, PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29297406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonyssoliloquy/pseuds/Moonyssoliloquy
Summary: "All in all, there’s nothing here for him to complain about.  He’s fine.  His first day has been mostly syllabus discussion, directions, and stupid ice breaker games (two truths and a lie: I play the guitar, I’m an only child, and I’ve travelled through time and been almost killed in three different centuries! No sorry, I’m actually the youngest of three, haha), but just a year after . . . well- everything, things are still a little bit hard."After returning from his adventure through time, Marty is having difficulties coping with the new reality and forgiving himself for his past mistakes.  Coping is a journey, and Marty's making progress, however slow and steady it may be.  But one realization threatens everything Marty has built over the past few months, sending him spiraling back to square one.
Relationships: Emmett "Doc" Brown & Marty McFly
Series: It's the aftermath that's hard [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2168772
Comments: 12
Kudos: 22





	Because

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy it! There are indirect and brief descriptions of Anxiety and a direct reference to PTSD so if this could be harmful to you I suggest clicking out, but (imo) its not too bad. Also the website is not letting me start paragraphs with indents which bothers me and if it bothers you as well, I am so sorry, it hurts me too.

Marty McFly is lost.

No really.

It’s one thing to transition from living at home to going to college. That alone is enough to get anyone all flustered and confused. It’s a completely different thing for a small-town California boy to transition into being a Bostonian student in the biggest music school of all time. For Marty, the transition is going . . . well it could be worse. He’s only frozen to death ten times, gotten lost five times, and fallen down a flight of stairs once on his first day. So far, pretty good. Just the normal college stressors leading to the normal college stress. 

All in all, there’s nothing here for him to complain about. He’s fine. His first day has been mostly syllabus discussion, directions, and stupid get to know you games (two truths and a lie: I play the guitar, I’m an only child, and I’ve traveled through time and been almost killed in three different centuries! No sorry, I’m actually the youngest of three, haha), but just a year after . . . well- everything, things are still a little bit hard. 

It’s especially rough to be away from Dad, Jennifer, and of course, Doc. Being away from Doc has been the absolute worst. On his er- travels, In the span of only 18 days, Marty had seen almost every person he held dear hurt or killed (both of them several times in Doc’s case), and even though he’s only been at Berklee College of Music for three days, he’s already fought the urge to call Doc just to check up on him 72 times. 

Anyway, a call consisting of “Yo Doc, you’re alive? No terrorists or Tannens shooting you in the back? Okay, cool, just checking. I’ll get back to class” would probably just make Doc worry and God knows Marty’s made Doc worry enough over the past 10 months. The way Doc, who's typically not about physical signs of affection, had held Marty a little too tight and for a little too long when he told Marty he was headed for a bright future before he got on his plane isn’t lost on Marty. 

So yeah, things have been a little bit rocky which perfectly explains the feeling of being off that Marty has had for a while. 

Or maybe it’s that things  _ haven’t _ been so rocky which also perfectly explains why Marty’s not feeling so great. Maybe it’s that things seem to be going so smoothly, Marty is almost expecting the world in front of him to melt away, revealing something atrocious. Something that’s going to loosen Marty’s last screw like . . . like his mom on a unicycle in a soviet radiation suit, holding up a sign that says “Martin McFly, you screwed up the universe” while Biff Tannen, chases after Marty, flamethrower in hand, riding an elephant. 

The thought makes him shudder. Even now, Marty has trouble discerning reality from time travel/flashback//nightmare/panic attack/whatever-it-is-this-time and Marty knows from (many bad) experiences, sinking too deep into a fleeting thought, no matter how comical or ridiculous it had started out, could send him into a super fun anxiety and self-loathing spiral that would really ruin his day. 

Consciously, driving his thoughts away, Marty angrily mutters to himself as he opens the door to the practice room he’s been assigned, frustrated with the strange feeling. Sure, it’s not a problem, nothing to be worried about because nothing’s wrong, but after the amount of stress it took to get into music school, pulling himself out from the darkest headspace he’s ever been to play an audition, actually playing the audition, and the fucking agonizing wait to hear back, you’d think he’d finally be at peace. There’d finally be a moment of, ‘okay Marty, yeah things are different now, yeah time travel messed you up, yeah we’ve never gone three nights in a row without nightmares, yeah your  _ real  _ family is gone, but we got into a great Rock n’ Roll school on a full-ridee, we’re out of Hill Valley, we’re achieving our dream, so it’s okay.’ But so far, Marty’s had no such revelation or moment of peace. Instead, he’s here, feeling upset when absolutely nothing is wrong. 

The therapist he’d seen for two weeks before he’d convinced his parents he was fine (and made sure to have any planned breakdowns at Doc’s and then at the park when Doc came back to 1986) had attributed it to PTSD or SCD, short for stupid chicken disease, as Marty has christened it. He had said that after Marty had experienced so much trauma in such a small time frame (though he was unclear on what exactly that trauma was) those experiences would affect him in many such ways and through therapy, they could work on understanding what was happening in Marty’s brain and work through it. 

But that wasn’t necessary because Marty was fine. The world was better and regretting it just made him selfish. Doc wasn’t lonely and his family was successful and better off. Hell, even Marty was better off. He’d gotten over his chicken problem which Doc had said was rooted in insecurity. That meant he wasn’t insecure and that meant it was all good.

And sure the fact that everyone in this universe wanted a different, smarter, stronger, braver, didn’t-fuck-up-the-universe, Marty whose life and dreams he had stolen existed. And sure the fact that he couldn’t keep memories straight and he was always on edge  _ because what if you let something slip, you can’t afford another screw-up, McFly _ , existed. And there was the fact that he was a stranger in his own life and that the only person he thought he’d always have now had three other people to look after and love and hug through hard nights. __ But Marty can’t dwell on that.

This feeling of being off is only that, a feeling. He’s just a bit overwhelmed with college, the long hours of practice, the new environment, the expectations. A bit worried about Doc, maybe, but that’s normal because Emmet Brown is Emmet Brown and is probably inventing an automatic flamethrower for the hell of it right this moment. But again, normal college transition, normal college stressors. Moving to a new place and leaving friends behind to fend for themselves? It’s a lot. This has got everything to do with that, and nothing to do with time travel, or worthlessness, or PTSD or anything like that. 

But as Marty stares as the Fender guitar (the same brand he  _ distinctly _ remembers longing for when watching an old tape of Jimi Hendrix playing on it at the record shop) that his Dad had apparently given him for his thirteenth birthday, the feeling of being off just crescendos. 

He tries to lose himself in the music and it works for a while, but his allotted practice time ends at 7:45 and just when Marty thinks the nauseating off-putting-ness is fading away into the familiarity of a 12-bar blues progression, an annoyed girl with a flute in hand knocks in the door, angrily pointing at her wrist and then the schedule, taped to the door. Marty gives her a sheepish grin, picking up his guitar and clumsily grabbing his amp, muttering an apology. 

Through the evening, the feeling just grows. Rising like a creeper from the pits of his stomach to his chest and settling in his throat, constricting his airways. 

Marty ignores it. After all, Marty’s fine and everything is better so there’s no reason to address it. 

It’s just a feeling. it's been a whole year. everything’s fine. It’s okay. No need to panic.  _ No need to panic. _

  
  


At night; however, like a guitar string, pulled sharp beyond its limits, Marty snaps. Because the world never seems to stay still around him. 

And when the world is dizzyingly spinning in random directions and the only steady place is one’s own mind, it’s a lot easier to sit there in confusion, thinking about how everything is falling apart around Marty because he’s a failure that’ll never be anything. Because anybody who tells him otherwise doesn’t really know him. Because he stole a different Marty’s life and let another version of Hill Valley be turned into Biff’s personal playground and let his mom be abused, and his siblings mistreated, and Doc committed, and his father killed all because he was so damn selfish and idiotic. Because there’s nobody he can talk to and because he's unwanted and alone and because just as he was starting to cope with his old reality, the rug has been swept from underneath him again and there's nothing anybody can say or do to make it better. 

Because before, when things got hard, the answer was always call Doc. But that won’t fix it because this Doc doesn’t know how much Marty has relied on him on hard days, this Doc doesn’t know what Marty needs to hear when he’s struggling, this Doc doesn’t know just how much Marty has struggled with self-worth and how much Doc has helped him on that journey. Because this Doc doesn’t know Marty. 

That's the realization.

That’s the odd feeling he’s had for 11 months now. That’s the ‘action that is keeping your brain from processing your trauma’ the therapist had told him about. That’s the feeling Marty has been suppressing, ignoring, doing absolutely  _ anything _ to avoid addressing. It’s not college, it’s not that things aren’t perfect or that they’re too perfect, it’s the fact that Doc is gone. 

Because the idea that Doc was still there? That has been Marty’s calm in the hurricane that is this terrifying post-time-travel world. That has been the saving grace that has kept Marty sane through his darkest moments. That has kept Marty’s hopes up when a little voice tells him that he doesn’t deserve to be here, that nobody wants him here. 

But Doc isn’t still here. Marty’s saving grace, his best friend, the man that has been there through Marty’s best and worst moments, who has raised Marty more than his own parents have? That man is gone. 

That man bled out in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall while Marty ran like a selfish, horrible piece of shit. That man died in a parking lot alone, while Marty was already moving on to his next screw up. 

Sitting in a college dormitory, Marty flops back, staring at the plain ceilings, finally realizing, he really is all alone. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! let me know if you want to me to turn this into a series (bc I want Marty to have some closure and comfort from Doc) ad if you have a BttF Tumblr to Ao3 leave your @ below bc I'm always looking for content! okay thanks!


End file.
